Today’s episode is a little different.

I (Peter) am actually interviewing my co-host Keeley about her previous company, Wild Friends Foods.

Prior to co-founding Lumo Group, Keeley was the co-founder and CEO of a nut and seed butter company called Wild Friends Foods. All the way back in 2011 Keeley and her roommate and best friend Erika decided to start making their own nut butter in their college apartment. One thing led to the next and soon they were selling it at a local farmers market. Then they got shelf space at a local natural foods grocery chain. Then they dropped out of college to build the company full time.

Now, 13 years later, Wild Friends is officially shutting down. It was a wild ride, full of ups and downs and successes and failures. But ultimately it was THE formative professional experience of Keeley’s life that led her to where she is today.

During this conversation, Keeley looks back and shares the unfiltered story of Wild Friends, and her key reflections and learnings from her journey over the past decade plus.

TOPICS WE DISCUSSED:

• Teaser Clip and Introduction
• Keeley discuss the history and journey of her previous company, Wild Friends Foods
• How Keeley and her co-founder Erika stumbled into entrepreneurship
• From farmers market to retail
• The early growth phase
• Exciting products or initiatives that didn’t succeed
• Best sellers and consumer psychology
• Raising investory money
• The costs and benefits of capital raising
• Hard times at Wild Friends
• Keeley's proudest moments of her journey with Wild Friends
• Deciding to sell the company
• The challenges and processes involved in selling a company
• The story of selling just before the COVID-19 lockdown.
• Why the company "failed"
• Hiring and Firing
• Leadership and management
• Advice for entrepreneurs on strategy development
• Mentors and Advisors
• Why did Keeley co-found Lumo Group?
• Rapid Fire Questions: all-time favorite Wild Friends flavor, current go to breakfast, current workout routine, favorite Olympic sport to watch, current favorite hobby outside of work, go-to podcasts, lessons learned from her kid, book recommendations: favorite business/workbook, favorite parenting book or resource, favorite young adult book, adult fiction books

Today’s interview is high energy, insightful and fun.

Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, marketer, coach, advisor, and fellow newsletter author. Wes has co-founded two companies: Maven, an edtech company that raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz, and the altMBA, which she co-founded with bestselling author Seth Godin. Over 250,000 people follow Wes across LinkedIn, X, and Substack.

Wes is a force to be reckoned with.

Keeley and I (Peter) first met Wes back in 2016 when we both participated in one of the first cohorts of the altMBA.

For those who aren’t familiar, altMBA is essentially a month-long online leadership bootcamp. The work we did and the frameworks we learned during that month continue to influence our work - and we have Wes to thank for that.

Since our time in the altMBA, we have followed Wes’s career with interest, as she co-founded another company (Maven) and then struck out on her own to help individuals and teams level up.

Every week, Wes’s newsletter pushes us to hold ourselves and others to a higher standard. Wes is rigorous, thoughtful, and good at coining memorable frameworks (some of which we discuss today!)

This was a super fun conversation. Keeley and I enjoyed debriefing this one (which you can listen to after the interview).

Enjoy this conversation with Wes Kao.

Topics Discussed:

• [00:00] Teaser Clip and Introduction
• [03:08] Wes’s background
• [03:55] What it means to be a high performer
• [08:52] Wes’s career arc
• [14:03] Lessons that Wes learned from Seth Godin, and what they disagree about
• [21:07] “Spiky points of view”
• [28:46] The “state change method”
• [31:17] Wes’s big vision for her business
• [35:47] Coaching
• [40:37] Organizational resilience, leadership succession, and getting raises
• [48:33] Toronto
• [49:42] Newsletters
• [52:05] YouTube
• [52:46] Houseplants
• [55:04] Book recommendations
• [55:48] Post-interview debrief with Peter and Keeley

Please help this interview reach more people by rating Uncommon Business on Spotify and Apple or by sharing it with others.

We would love your feedback, comments, and questions. Please leave a comment directly on the post or email us at hello@lumogroup.co.

Thank you!

Peter & Keeley
Partners, Lumo Group

Our guest is Darren Marshall. Darren is the CEO of Smith Teamaker. Prior to Smith, he worked in high level roles at iconic companies such as Coca Cola and Steinway.

People have been drinking tea for centuries.

It is one of the oldest consumer products in the world.

Because tea has been around forever, the category as a whole is relatively sleepy.

The tea industry has only experienced low single digit growth on average over the past decade. But Smith Teamaker has bucked this slow growth trend by growing dramatically over the past five years under Darren’s leadership.

We have talked to founders on this podcast before. But the reason we wanted to talk to Darren was the opposite. He is not the founder of Smith Teamaker. He joined the company as CEO in 2018 and has overseen a period of transformation, growth, and adaptability, even through COVID.

Succeeding a founder as CEO can be challenging. It’s not easy to step into a founder-led business and keep excitement and momentum going. Yet that is exactly what Darren has done, and much more. Today the business is much healthier and growing more quickly than ever before.

Topics Discussed:

• Introduction from Peter and Keeley
• The founding story of Smith Tea
• Succeeding a founder and how to navigate it and how Darren approached his first few months on the job
• Best and worst parts of working at Coca Cola
• Darren’s time at Steinway and the ins and outs of the luxury piano market
• How the company is growing through agility, innovation, and culture
• Maintaining a business in central Portland despite the property crime
• The ownership of the company and the outlook for the future
• Managing upward (i.e. to a board)
• Hiring practices
• Leadership
• Darren’s favorite cities
• Classical music recommendations
• Book recommendation
• Darren’t current tea order
• Debrief on the interview from Keeley and Peter